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Deradicalizing Gaza

(European Conservative) Cole S. Aronson - After World War II, there was no postwar insurgency. After the Nazis and imperial Japanese surrendered, groups of disaffected soldiers did not lead violent campaigns to restore the defeated regimes. The occupations of Germany and Japan were peaceful. Both countries became reliable American allies. Hundreds of thousands of the defeated regimes' supporters - including senior officials, including war criminals - escaped serious punishment, rejoined society, and sometimes gained political influence. And still the peace was kept. How did the populations that had supported and fought for the Axis regimes get moderated? Politically speaking, ideas can certainly be destroyed, just as they can be weakened, or die peacefully, or be resurrected. Imperialism was destroyed in Japan. Baathism was destroyed in Iraq. Communism died (without war) in Russia. Nazism was destroyed in Germany. Hamas's bellicose Islamism might be destroyed in Gaza, not necessarily because Gazans stop believing, deep down, that Hamas has noble ideals. Rather, because Hamas's ideals are deprived of the instruments of political power - armed militants. Military losses and urban destruction can improve political cultures. Populations can abandon the aims that motivated them very recently to support aggressive wars and the regimes that start them. Deradicalization begins as civilians are persuaded of the futility and costliness of the aims of those who rule them. The German and Japanese peoples lost their homes, their streets, and their comfort, brought on by their regimes' failed wars. Military defeats showed the Axis projects to be futile. In great measure, the German and Japanese peoples were deradicalized by the war itself. Since Oct. 7, Israel has undertaken a war of Palestinian regime change and is doing a remarkable job given its political constraints. Hamas's Gaza leadership is hiding or dead. The majority of Hamas battalions have disintegrated into gangs. More than 17,000 fighters have been killed. Israel's current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule - it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace. A noteworthy obstacle to moderate Palestinian governance is the lack of much precedent for it. For a hundred years, Palestinians have been led either by out-and-out Islamists like Hajj Amin al-Husseini - a wartime guest of the Third Reich - and like Hamas, or by better-marketed militants like Palestinian Authority chiefs Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Palestinian leaders have shared certain broad commitments: to brutalizing their domestic opponents and to terrorizing Jews. A long-term Israeli military presence will be needed to protect non-Hamas Palestinian leaders after main hostilities calm down. The Palestinians are now suffering as never before for their leaders' viciousness. The leaders themselves are in dire condition, with more killed every week. The Hamas movement looks like a losing, destructive, and pathetic cause. Palestinians know it, more or more each day.
2024-09-15 00:00:00
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